Big Pharma: Gaming the System

Our most mundane daily lives are full of chemicals. Embedded in plastics, detergents and toasters, nestled in food, cans, toys, shampoos, they are invisible and everywhere at once, including in our bodies. Consumer society and petrochemical magic wander into our little interiors under names that are strictly unknown and perfectly barbaric. Phthalates, brominated flame retardants, parabens, bisphenol-A have the unfortunate disadvantage of burglarizing our hormonal privacy: they are endocrine disruptors. For the renowned scientists who appear in this documentary, this chemical impregnation is not unrelated to the development of so-called modern diseases – from breast cancer to obesity. The observation, rather serious, does not prevent the film from taking the side of the second degree.

Shot over the course of 18 months in New York City's Lower East Side, METHADONIA sheds light on the inherent flaws of legal methadone treatments for heroin addiction by profiling eight addicts, in various stages of recovery and relapse, who attend the New York Center for Addiction Treatment Services (NYCATS).

Narrator and director Michael Schaap's confessional style and general goofiness bring levity to an awkward topic: "erectile dysfunction" and the little blue pill that treats it.

The film exposes the links between Agrifood and politics. With a pool of international experts it analyses the many problems related to factory farming: water pollution, migrants exploitation, biodiversity loss and antibiotic resistance.

In America, size matters. The bigger you are, the more power you have, especially in the business world. Anat Baron takes you on a no holds barred exploration of the U.S. beer industry that ultimately reveals the truth behind the label of your favorite beer. Told from an insider’s perspective, the film goes behind the scenes of the daily battles and all out wars that dominate the industry.

Ukraine in Flames is a documentary produced by Oliver Stone that reveals American and NATO participation in the 2014 coup d'état in Ukraine and its aftermath. The renowned American director, who in recent years has made several productions within the genre of political cinema, investigates the origins of the current conflict that currently keeps the entire European continent and the entire planet in suspense. In the film, Stone interviews, among others, the former president of Ukraine, Víktor Yanukovych; Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Ukrainian Interior Minister Vitali Zajarchenko.

A documentary that examines the issue of forced live organ harvesting from Chinese prisoners of conscience, and the response - or lack of it - around the world. It's happened before: governments killing their own citizens for their political or spiritual beliefs. But it’s never happened like this. It’s happened so often that the world doesn’t always pay attention.

Spin doctors spread misinformation and confusion among American citizens to delay progress on such important issues as global climate change.

30,000 people die in the US each year by firearms. Collateral damage of an undeclared civil war, from which the arms industry has benefited for decades under German and European participation. Starting from the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, this documentary examines why we can't stop the arms madness.

Extraordinary behind-the-scenes access reveals a drug company's fevered race to develop the first FDA-approved Viagra for women - and offers a humorous but sobering look inside the cash-fueled pharmaceutical industry.

A popular science film about the creation of a new drug, from the moment a chemist determines, based on the composition of a substance, that it might have medicinal effects, to the moment it finds itself in the patient's hand

By coincidence rather than by design, the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann makes a sensational discovery in the spring of 1943. He realizes that he is dealing with a powerful molecule that will have an impact that reaches far beyond the scientific world. THE SUBSTANCE is an investigation into our troubled relationship with LSD, told from its beginnings to today.

Freedom From Choice explores the endless layers of backroom dealing that is the US lobbying industry. Through a series of thought-provoking interviews, experts from numerous industries explain in simple terms how the political 'revolving door' creates unfair regulations which affect their industry. Supplemented by recent news clips and archival footage, the experts paint a startling picture of the overregulation of modern American life.

Life is about choice. What we eat, what we read, who we elect; every day we make choices that determine how we want to live. But what if these choices are just an illusion? In an era where regulations and red tape rule every industry, where lobby groups and big businesses wield more influence than ever before, our daily choices have become increasingly limited. And with all our options so deliberately handpicked, are we really making a choice at all? Freedom From Choice examines the current state of life and personal choice today. Experts from many different fields offer a frank and startling look at the hidden limitations in our daily lives. Focusing on key areas such as food, medicine, finance, and media, Freedom From Choice provides viewers with a glimpse at the myriad of ways their lives are being dictated and tells us who stands to gain.

Bikes vs Cars depicts a global crisis that we all deep down know we need to talk about: Climate, earth's resources, cities where the entire surface is consumed by the car. An ever-growing, dirty, noisy traffic chaos. The bike is a great tool for change, but the powerful interests who gain from the private car invest billions each year on lobbying and advertising to protect their business. In the film we meet activists and thinkers who are fighting for better cities, who refuse to stop riding despite the increasing number killed in traffic.

Americans consume 75% of the world’s prescription drugs. After losing his own brother to the growing epidemic of prescription drug abuse, documentarian Chris Bell sets out to demystify this insidious addiction. Bell’s examination into the motives of big pharma and doctors in this ever-growing market leads him to meet with experts on the nature of addiction, survivors with first-hand accounts of their struggle, and whistleblowers who testify to the dollar-driven aims of pharmaceutical corporations. Ultimately his investigation will point back to where it all began: his own front door.

Psychotropic drugs. It’s the story of big money-drugs that fuel a $330 billion psychiatric industry, without a single cure. The cost in human terms is even greater-these drugs now kill an estimated 42,000 people every year. And the death count keeps rising. Containing more than 175 interviews with lawyers, mental health experts, the families of victims and the survivors themselves, this riveting documentary rips the mask off psychotropic drugging and exposes a brutal but well-entrenched money-making machine. Before these drugs were introduced in the market, people who had these conditions would not have been given any drugs at all. So it is the branding of a disease and it is the branding of a drug for a treatment of a disease that did not exist before the industry made the disease.

The leading consumers of medicines on the planet, are the French really sicker than the rest of humanity? Or are there other explanations for this bulimia? By mixing in-depth interviews and plasticine animations, this documentary takes viewers on a journey through the drug. Materialized by the setting of a town, Pharmacy, this walk goes through all the stages. From clinical trials to marketing, from therapeutic evaluation to price setting, from marketing hype to the side effects suffered - at the end of the chain - by patients, public authorities and the pharmaceutical industry are questioned without question. detours on their responsibilities.

Céréales : pas de bol pour le petit-dej

Every year many new drugs come to market which offer hope to the sick and dying. This documentary film investigates just how far drug companies are prepared to go to get their drugs approved, what they will do to make sure they get the prices they want, and what happens when profits are put before people.